A Subconscious Warning
by CeilingofStars
Summary: When Sarah gets too wrapped up in her problems, the Labyrinth reappears to remind her not to forget her past. Whether it's her neglected imagination or a real occurence, this journey is just as memorable as the last.
1. Chapter 1 An Omen

A thud hit the wall. Sarah regretfully opened her eyes. Again, only this time it was followed by a mischievous giggle. "Stop it," she said tiredly, and she sunk further into her bath. Another giggle; another thump. "Toby," she said, pushing herself out of the warm water. "Toby, sto-." CRASH! Sarah quickly stood up and threw a towel around her shivering body. "What are you doing?" she asked accusingly as she hurriedly walked down the hallway and out into her parents' bedroom. A four-year-old little boy stared up at her, smiling, with food smeared on his face. A smudge of something dark brown was on the wall. "Oh, I hope that's not what it looks like," she moaned, leaning her face closer to smell it. Her face near the wall, she caught a glimpse of white behind her little brother. She pushed him aside and let out a short, strained noise. "Toby, you bad boy! Bad!" she screamed, grabbing his hand and yanking him away from the broken pieces of her stepmother's Oriental vase. "I can't believe-," she began as she started to walk Toby to his room, but then she slowly turned back to look at the dirt-smeared wall. "Toby, go to your room." He paused and stared up at her questioningly. "Go, now!" she exclaimed, pushing him slightly. He tottered out the door as she stood looking, open-mouthed, at the wall. 'Things aren't always what they seem,' she mouthed, her towel dropping. A breath of cold air stirred her, and the writing on the wall began to blow away. She turned around quickly to see the window open. Soon, it was shut and locked, and the dark blue shutters were pulled. She ran back into the bathroom and threw on her nightgown, then quickly made her way to Toby's room. When she reached the doorway, something in the blackness slithered away from her, and she ran in to his bed, hugging him when she found was there. "Sarah, baby! Gotta light?" He held one hand up to his mouth and blew threw his fingers. "Stop saying that," she commanded, shaking her head. She should've never smoked in front of her brother; how could she have been so stupid? At least he didn't know what it meant, not yet. She reached over to his bedside lamp and clicked the switch. When she started to pull away, something furry brushed her hand. She shrieked and stood up. It fell off of the table. Like a scared housewife on seeing a rat, she began picking her feet up and calling for help. Toby laughed awkwardly like little kids do, his hands spread across his mouth and his body rocking back and forth. She realized that it was only Lancelot, and she rubbed her face wearily. The door slammed downstairs. "Sarah? We're home," her stepmother called up. "Hey! I'm going to bed now, OK? Toby's in his room. He needs a bath," she answered, walking out into the hall. When she got into her room, she sighed. It was so little girl-ish. She'd redone it a few years ago, why didn't she make it cool? But that was before. Sarah flicked off the overhead light and crawled under her creamy pink sheets. The giant green numerals on her alarm clock flashed 12:06. Poor Toby, she thought, I should've put him to bed. But all this was forgotten as she slipped into a light, tumultuous sleep. 


	2. Chapter 2 Resignation

The next morning, Sarah woke up to someone bouncing incessantly on her bed. "Go away, Toby," she moaned, hitting him with a pillow. He laughed and sat on her leg. She nauseatedly rolled over on her left side and checked her alarm clock. "Seriously, Toby, go away. It's seven o'clock. I have to get ready. Crawling out of bed, she quickly took a shower and put on some jeans and a dark blouse. Patting her brother on the head on her way out, she drove her old green Honda to a tall, nameless office building in a group of many others. Upon entering her employer's office, she was handed a stack of papers and told to file them. She sipped her coffee and began shuffling through the stack when her boss appeared in front of her desk. "Sarah, you're late again today. If it happens again, I'm afraid we'll have to take more serious measures." With this, he left the room and headed down the hallway in the direction of the elevators. Sarah flopped the papers down on the floor next to her and leaned back in her chair. "It's not fair. It's Toby's fault! Damn it, I wish I had a real job." She reached down to pick up the papers again and returned to looking them over. There were a few memos to her boss, a couple bills, and a record of some cases he'd been assigned to a week or so ago. Finally, when she got to the last paper, she realized that it looked different from the rest. 'We miss you here,' it read. "I'm going crazy," she thought to herself, and she stared out her small window at the park below. Suddenly, she stood up and glared contemptfully at her boss's office. "I'm quitting!" she shouted to the empty room. "This isn't what I wanted." She gathered her things and wrote out a firm resignation letter. Two weeks more; it couldn't be that hard. When she got out, she'd do something that she really wanted to - writing. 


	3. Chapter 3 The Trouble Begins

The alarm on Sarah's clock buzzed. "I don't want to get up," she moaned, pushing herself to a sitting position. Glancing at the clock, she realized that she didn't have to. "Oh, I should've remembered to turn it off last night. Damn." She hit the OFF button and lay back in bed. It was two weeks after Sarah had turned in her resignation letter, and for the first morning since the history of time, or so it seemed to her, she didn't have to be anywhere until she felt like it. Not that she felt completely relaxed, as was apparently as she restlessly tossed and turned in an attempt to get back to sleep. Little reminders of her past had been showing up. She found an open copy of her old playbook on her bed, turned to the page that held the line she's always forgotten: "You have no power over me." Figuring that Toby had been pretending to read again, she'd filed it back on her bookshelf. She couldn't help being scared at night, though, when a flutter of owl wings on her window and caused it to burst open. It was her imagination, of course, but still. . The day passed like usual, and sunset came unwelcomed. Sarah sat out in an old rocking chair on her front porch and stared at the suburban yard that sprawled out in front of her. A voice creeped down to her from her upstairs window. "Saaaaarrrraaaaah!" it called. A thunder of footsteps came down the staircase, and Toby came hurtling through the open front door. "Sarah, read to me, babe." He handed her his copy of Where the Wild Things Are, and she held out her arms lovingly for him to crawl in onto her lap. "Where the wild things are, by Maurice Sendak. The night-" "I know it Sarah, I can read it to you," Toby said resentfully. "Oh, well, OK," she said and handed the book over to him. "The night," he began pointing to the pictures, "J-John, well, he was in the dark, and the goblins were mean, and they said, 'Give me your money,' and John said, 'No!' and-." Here Toby flipped the page. "And the goblins were ugly, and they said, 'I'll eat you,' and John said, 'No you won't,' and - Sarah, are you listening? - the goblins decided to eat John, and John's mother didn't believe that they would and she didn't like him so she said - Sarah, look! - and she said, 'John, I wish the goblins WOULD come and take you away right now,'" He giggled and jabbed Sarah in the ribs. "And the Joh-." But a flash of light silenced Toby's ramblings and glitter fell from the sky as the Goblin King appeared. 


End file.
